Most efficient way to advertise legitimately?

[Alesia Schumann]

Having read the current forum guidelines, it's only 'playing nice' to have a signature with a link to your business, which people can hide anyway if they refuse to see signatures.

I recently relaunched my photo studio in SL and despite getting nice relevance in search results, getting people to come in is not that easy. I once did business in SL as a photographer and had happy customers, but being found nowadays seems to be... erm... pretty difficult.

Is there any legit way to advertise on the grid and in the "Community" without violating terms of service or wasting money on hopeless classifieds?

Tier being due in less than a week, I'd love to hear any productive suggestion. In the absence of sales, I definitely will abandon the land to avoid spending uselessly on tier.

Edited June 11, 2021 by Alesia Schumann

[Sid Nagy]

A few things that I most likely would do if I was setting up a photo business:

1. Showcase your work wherever you can.
There are threads enough here on this forum where people showcase theirs.
Don't ask for customers. Just keep using your sig.

2. There are other places that talk about SL.
Have a look there as well if there are possibilities to showcase your work.
Maybe set up an own blog.

3. If you can afford it, keep your land a bit longer, but don't use it as a photo studio but as a gallery, again to showcase your work.
Make an event out of it. That you can promote at the right place here on the forums. Advertise it in search.
Maybe even get it featured in the destination guide. I never dived into that, but if others can get it there, there must be ways.

4. Use the whole of SL as your photo studio. Find interesting places, sort out interesting lightnings, think out of the box.

5. Don't expect to get rich over night. You are long enough in SL to know that the place if full of oldies who have seen and done it all, with totally overloaded inventories.
I had my store in 2007 from scratch to success (meaning at least covering expenses) in a few weeks. A few months later it was making more L$ then I spend in SL.
I stopped with it a few years later due to changing circumstances. Took a break from SL.
Now I'm fiddling with a new shop again, I'm several months into it and still  happy when I make tier most of the weeks and even that only happens since the last month.
Being a merchant has become a lot harder.

I only build for the fun of it now. Getting really lazy with building at times.
Getting really successful again as I once was, is no longer my goal. Times have changed, in SL too.

Edited June 11, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[Maitimo]

I agree with all of what Sid says here, and would add - 

You need a presence on Flickr, Facebook and maybe Instagram to showcase your work.  Post your images in relevant groups. Flickr is probably the most important one.

 

[Alesia Schumann]

Thank you for the replies. I much appreciate your input!

Will have to consider what to do. Some of those means I used in the past. I'm a little surprised that Flickr is still relevant nowadays.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 minutes ago, Alesia Schumann said:

I'm a little surprised that Flickr is still relevant nowadays.

It is for SL: there is a huge presence by merchants, photographers, artists, and just people who like taking snaps on Flickr. (Which maybe says more about SL than it does about Flickr.)

Join some groups and post. Follow people and fave; engage with them in comments. Some people use their Flickr handle as an advertisement too.

[Maitimo]

Just a heads-up, if you use Flickr to promote a business in SL, or to promote a commercial blog, you MUST go premium with your Flickr account otherwise you'll be in breach of their TOS.

[PixelBerry]

I would totally use Flickr for that if I were you, there are some nice advertisement groups that you can join, also having a pic on your profile for advertising what you do. I wouldn't bother much with Instagram, I think barely anyone use Instagram for Second life, at least not as much as people use Flickr. If you get a bigger audience you can probably make a Second life Facebook account to try and advertise there as well, but I don't know how affective that is.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

 

Edited June 13, 2021 by Arduenn Schwartzman